


Lessons in Communication

by akikotree, mybeanieandme



Series: San Francisco Dance AU [7]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: BDSM, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Kink, Kinky, M/M, Modern AU, OT5 Friendship, Oral Sex, Porn, RPF, Second Chance, Sex Toys, hazlou, lourry, porn industry, real person fic, san francisco dance au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 09:12:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3351215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akikotree/pseuds/akikotree, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybeanieandme/pseuds/mybeanieandme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wicked Grounds was a long narrow coffee shop with white walls and red ceilings. A scattering of small tables and comfy chairs ran down each side, with the drink menus and the counter most of the way to the back on the right. The artwork on the walls caught Louis's eye and held it. A series of unsubtle black and white nude photographs- well taken, with good lighting and compositions- but very distinctly pictures of naked people tied up in various positions. Opposite the drinks counter was a good sized cage, one that could certainly fit one person- maybe two if they got extremely friendly. There was also a case of dildos, whips, chains, handcuffs and other fetish items for sale. So... Harry had managed to find possibly the only BDSM coffee shop in the city and picked it for what was (kind of) their first date. Louis decided to take this as a good sign, though he tried not to read too much into it. </p><p>This story takes place chronologically after parts 1 and 2 of this series. Harry and Louis try again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Communication

Louis glanced at the clock on his register screen again. 2:40. Twenty minutes to the end of his shift. He'd been looking at the time about ever other minute since 2pm. Louis drummed his fingers restlessly on the edge of the counter, staring out over the store. This Whole Foods location usually had a steady flow of people all morning with a lunch rush that lasted from 11:30- 1pm or so. Then there was another rush from 4:30- 7pm when all the hipsters and tech geeks from the surrounding companies got off work. 2pm- 3pm in the afternoon was the most boring part of the day. 

Someone stepped up to his lane and Louis smiled mechanically. 

“Hi, how are you,” he said, automatically. It was a woman, long blond hair, mid-thirties, Namasté shirt. Louis rung up her two bottles of Kombucha, three oranges and six Luna Bars. 

“Would you like a paper bag for ten cents?” Louis asked. 

“Oh shit- yeah, okay,” she said and Louis added ten cents to her charge. She paid on a credit card. Thank god she hadn't felt the need to tell him the same goddamn long winded story about how her reusable bags were still in the car that he heard eight thousand times a day. 

Louis glanced at the clock. 2:45. 

He had been working since 7am. He hadn't even left the store on his lunch break, just gone down to the attached cafe/bar on the corner. Everyone who worked there knew him from upstairs and left him alone. He'd had a burger while ignoring the Oakland A's game on over the bar. Giants must be on a travel day. 

A girl, mid-twenties, short hair, weird hat, set a salad box down onto the conveyor belt at Louis's station. 

“Hi,” he said. “Do you need a bag for ten cents?” 

“I'll carry it,” she said. He rung up her purchase and she paid in cash. 

“Do you want a piece of tape on this box?” Louis asked, handing over the change. 

“No, I'm just going to eat it in two minutes,” she smiled and headed off. 

Louis glanced at the clock again. 2:50. Fuck it. He switched off his register light. 

“Karen, I'm off,” he called to the woman at the next register.

“See you later,” she responded. 

Louis dropped off his apron and name tag in the back, collected his jacket and walked out of the store. Two blocks down there was a low cement wall under some ornamental birch trees between two parking garages. Louis sat down there and pulled out his phone. He sat with it in his hands, an itchy tension starting between his shoulder blades, and butterflies beginning in his stomach. 

Harry had said that he would call after Louis got off from work. Louis wasn't sure if this meant that he _might_ call- you know, if he thought of it; or that he would _probably_ call, but just to check in and see how things were going; or that he would _definitely_ call and they were going to Talk About Things. Whichever it was Louis wanted to be ready. He turned his phone over and over in his hands. It was the same cheap piece of shit cell phone he had bought back in January. He'd needed a number Whole Foods could reach him at and the one he'd used to apply for the job had been thankfully out of date. The house where Louis lived now in the Mission did not have a land line. Nor did it have wifi. It wasn't exactly a nice place to live. 

Louis's phone rang in his hands and he almost dropped it. 

“Hello?” he answered, his heart pounding. 

“Hi, it's Harry,” said Harry- as if there could possibly be any confusion. As if Louis hadn't been thinking about this call all day. “Can you talk?”

“Yes,” said Louis. 

“Great,” said Harry. “How was work?”

“Uh- fine,” said Louis. “Normal?” He searched around for something to say about it, some amusing anecdote perhaps, but there really weren't any. 

“How are you?” Louis asked instead. 

“Kind of bored,” said Harry. “It's weird having this gap before I go to LA. I feel like I should be dancing but all the studios at school are closed until the summer session starts.” 

“Yeah, that's... annoying,” said Louis. Just from Harry's tone Louis could picture him fidgeting, maybe perched on one of the kitchen stools in the apartment or else flopped on the couch. Or in his bed, playing with the cord of the venetian blinds with his toes... best not to picture that, actually. 

“I missing having Niall and Liam and Zayn around,” said Harry. 

“Yeah,” said Louis. There was a pause. Now Louis couldn't tell if Harry was waiting for him to say something or just spacing out. 

“Do you... want to hang out maybe?” Louis asked, very very tentatively. 

Louis wasn't sure if he was allowed to suggest this yet. It had been five days since he had crept into the ODC Theater during intermission, going in after the lights went off, keeping his head down like a guilty man. Five days since he had sat down at a table with four people he hadn't spoken to in half a year- and realized that they were still his best friends even though it felt like he hardly knew them anymore. Five days since he had spilled his secrets to Liam on the foldout couch in the dark Pine Street apartment. He had hung out with them most of the days after that- while Niall lounged around and Liam rushed back and forth from San Francisco to San Rafael trying to spend as much time as possible at the apartment and also get his last finals done. Those few days had already gone a long way towards re-integrating Louis back into the rhythms of the group. But Niall, Liam and Zayn had all left yesterday, flying off from SFO back to Ireland and England for the summer. Louis had yet to spend any time with Harry outside of the group. He wasn't at all sure where they stood in relation to each other. So when he asked “Do you... want to hang out maybe?” it was in the most neutral of tones and with no expectations. 

“That's what I was calling about,” said Harry. 

“Oh,” said Louis, very relieved.

“Yeah, I think we should go on a date,” said Harry. 

“A _date,”_ said Louis. He and Harry had pretty much skipped dates the first time around. They'd basically gone from significant eye contact to sex, leaving aside all the usual niceties in between. 

“Yes, _a date,”_ Harry drawled. _“You know,_ that thing where two people who might like each other go spend time together to see if they have anything in common? One of those...?” 

“I'm aware of the concept,” said Louis. 

“I realize,” said Harry, in a slightly less sarcastic tone, “That they usually happen before the epic breakup... thing...” 

Louis didn't want Harry thinking about that. Especially not if Harry might still like him and was prepared to look for common ground. 

“A date sounds good,” he said, quickly. “That sounds- that sounds really good.” 

“Cool,” said Harry. 

“Uh- what kind of date did you have in mind?” asked Louis. They _really_ hadn't done this before. “Dinner and a movie?” He felt kind of weird even suggesting that, but he was game if Harry was. 

“I think we should get coffee,” said Harry, with a bit of smile in his voice. 

“That sounds great,” said Louis. He could completely get behind coffee. “When do you want to go? You're leaving for LA in about two weeks, right?”

“I was thinking right now,” said Harry. 

“Right now?” Louis abruptly sat up straighter. Was Harry somewhere nearby? Louis looked around a little wildly. 

“There's a place I found online,” said Harry. He sounded a little mischievous. “A coffee shop at Eighth and Folsom. It's called Wicked Grounds, do you know it?” 

“Wicked Grounds...? I don't think so,” said Louis, sitting back. If it was all the way down on Folsom he probably wasn't being spied on right now. 

“Do you want to met there in maybe half an hour or so?” asked Harry. “That's how long the bus will take me.” 

“Sure!” said Louis. “It'll take me at least twenty or thirty minutes to walk.”

“Alright, I'll see you in a bit then,” said Harry, and he ended the call before Louis could say goodbye. But- but it would have been weird to say goodbye anyway- as they'd just arranged to met. Louis stood up, tucked his phone into his pocket, and headed down Rhode Island Street away from work. One good thing about arranging to met so quickly was it didn't really give him much time to worry about it. Instead, as he walked, Louis thought back to that night he had slipped into the ODC Theater. He remembered the press of the familiar theater darkness as he climbed the stairs all the way to a seat in the back. He remembered the weird, almost surreal disassociation he had felt on seeing his old classmates perform upon the stage. He had felt completely unconnected to any of them- their lives were continuing on a straight and even path, while his had taken a 180-turn through the weeds and into the ditch. He'd sat through the first two pieces feeling nothing, beginning to wonder if he shouldn't have come, if this had been yet another mistake. But then there had been the final piece. Harry had been in that last dance- more alive and more real that he had even been and not forty feet away from Louis. It seemed impossible that he could be so close. Harry moved like poetry in human form and watching him dance had done something to Louis. Louis had lived for six months with his head full of nothing but cobwebs and dust. The sight of Harry was like the opening of a door- it sent a ray of light into his mind and a breath of air that stirred through everything. 

It was there in that dark theater, with the beating of the dancer's feet sending vibrations though the floor, that Louis had realized he wanted to start over. Well, actually- he had always wanted to start over. But now, at last, he felt he might be capable of actually doing so. He wished he could say something to Harry, say he was sorry- say he loved him- and see what answer he might get in return. He had told Liam as much later that evening, lying on the foldout couch in the apartment that he had never expected to return to. Liam had listened to him with the same serious, patient attention that he gave to everything. Liam did not know his own worth. He had let Louis relive the horrible story and speaking it out loud had been a blessed relief. Louis had told him... almost everything. 

And after Liam had left? Well, the surprises of the evening had not been over yet. 

The door to Harry's room had opened and Harry had come stalking down the hall. It was not until he had stubbed his toe on the coffee table and muttered a curse that Louis realized Harry was headed for the living room, not the bathroom. Harry had stood for a minute, a dark unreadable shape in the dim room. Louis had thought he might be frowning, though there was not enough light to see his face. 

“Niall is _snoring,”_ Harry had said, exhaustion and irritation heavy in his voice. “And he _kicks._ I would push him off the bed, except for his knee...” 

There was a pause. 

“Pretty sure Liam's not coming back,” Louis had supplied. 

Harry had climbed into Liam's abandoned sleeping bag without comment. He pulled a pillow under his head and turned his back on Louis. 

“I'm only here because I couldn't sleep,” Harry had muttered tiredly. “Don't get any ideas.” 

“Alright,” Louis had agreed. So he turned away from Harry as well and folded his hands under his chin, to keep them out of the way. But he had shifted back a little until he could feel the warmth of Harry just behind him. There were two or three layers of blankets between them, but Louis imagined that he could feel the curve of Harry's spine. Harry had said nothing, so Louis assumed this was okay. Louis had fallen asleep in that position. He had not dreamed. 

He had been hungry when he woke up. Harry had still been asleep, and Louis had done his best to be very quiet, knowing that Harry had another show that evening. He had wandered into the kitchen to see what they had. The answer was: very little. Canned beans. Eggs. Bread. No butter. Ground coffee but no milk, no cream. No leftovers. Nothing of interest in the freezer. Louis had stared for a while into an empty cupboard which used to hold cereal but now stood empty. Well... he could start a pot of coffee anyway. Surely no one would complain about that. By the time the carafe had started to fill Harry had begun stirring on the couch and Louis had decided he might as well scramble the eggs and heat up the beans. He put an empty pan on the stove, since they were also out of oil. 

Harry had shuffled over to the kitchen island still wrapped in the sleeping bag. He had frowned in concern as he watched Louis crack four eggs into a bowl. When Louis had silently handed him a cup of black coffee he had stared at it in deep suspicion, as if it might be some nasty trick. 

“You don't cook,” Harry had stated, almost angrily. 

“I'm trying to learn,” Louis had replied. No one else had been stepping up to feed him. He didn't have a meal plan anymore and he couldn't afford to go out very often. 

“Hm,” Harry had grunted noncommittally. He had sat brooding over his coffee cup until Louis had handed him a plate of eggs, beans and unbuttered toast. Harry had glared at the food as if it dealt him a personal insult. But he had eaten it. Liam and Zayn had emerged eventually, very smiley and touchy and completely tangled up in each other's space. They couldn't stop looking at each other. Louis suspected good morning blow jobs. 

Niall had been the last to wake, which wasn't that surprising, since he'd had the most bed to sleep in. He had come into the kitchen and stopped short. He had taken in the sight of Harry sitting at his leisure, Louis at the stove and Liam laughing with Zayn half in his lap. His eyebrows had gone way up. 

“What the _fuck,”_ he had asked deliberately, “has occurred in this apartment while I've been sleeping?” 

But his voice had still been a little blurry with sleep, so it had come out more like, “Wha' ta fuhk has occurrred in tis aparrrtment whils I'ehv been sleeping?” 

Louis smiled a little, remembering it. He'd now reached the end of Rhode Island where it ran into Division and he took this a few blocks to the traffic circle. He circled halfway around and headed down 8th Street. He passed the red brick Zynga building on his left and continued going, passed a convention center, under the freeway. Palm trees, gas stations, a homeless veteran standing on the corner with a cardboard sign. Louis crossed Harrison Street, wishing he'd thought to ask Harry the exact address. He'd just keep walking until he reach Folsom then wander around until he spotted it. He passed the San Francisco Conservatory for Dance a few blocks later- they'd all come here on a field trip last semester, watched a matinee show with a talk afterward by the choreographer. It had been a long time since he last thought about that. He rarely thought about dance anymore. Dance was behind him. Distant past. 

Now here was Folsom. On the corner to his right was a huge carpet store- to his left was the black painted facade of Leather, Etc. Louis decided to cross the street and look there. Two doors down from the corner Louis saw the coffee shop. It was painted cream with dark red trim, and there were flags hanging in the windows on either side of the door. The flag on the left was a rainbow, which was extremely common in San Francisco. Lots of shops and restaurants in this area had a rainbow something, or else a pink triangle with the caption _safe space_ beneath it. The flag on the right however was stripped horizontally in black and blue and white, with a red heart in one corner. Louis knew that flag... He took a deep breath, pushed open the door and looked around. 

Wicked Grounds was a long narrow coffee shop with white walls and red ceilings. A scattering of small tables and comfy chairs ran down each side, with the drink menus and the counter most of the way to the back on the right. The artwork on the walls caught Louis's eye and held it. A series of unsubtle black and white nude photographs- well taken, with good lighting and compositions- but very distinctly pictures of naked people tied up in various positions. Opposite the drinks counter was a good sized cage, one that could certainly fit one person- maybe two if they got extremely friendly. There was also a case of dildos, whips, chains, handcuffs and other fetish items for sale. So... Harry had managed to find possibly the only BDSM coffee shop in the city and picked it for what was (kind of) their first date. Louis decided to take this as a good sign, though he tried not to read too much into it. 

And there was Harry. Louis's heart did that thing, that hitch in his chest that it had always done when the sight of Harry caught him unawares. For months and months it had happened when someone of Harry's approximate height and build walked by in his peripheral vision. And now- just in the past few days- it would happen when the rare text from Harry lit up his phone. Harry was wearing brown boots, tight black jeans and a short-sleeved button-up shirt which was plaid on the back and patterned with squares of flowers in tan and gray-blue on the front. It looked like something you might find in a vintage used clothing store and Louis knew that he could never have pulled it off in a million years. But Harry... well, he managed to look good in pretty much everything. Harry was standing at the counter with his head turned towards a partly curtained back room, perhaps eying the tall shelf filled with board games- or the half dozen wooden paddles and sticks hanging on the wall beside it. Louis walked towards the counter, trying very hard not to be nervous, but finding himself nervous anyway. Harry turned when he heard Louis's footsteps draw near. 

“Hey,” said Louis, attempting a smile. He hoped it looked natural. 

“Hey, you made it,” Harry smiled just a little in return. “It didn't take me as long as I thought it would, I've already ordered something.” 

“That's fine,” said Louis. He glanced up a bit vaguely at the handwritten menu on the chalk board, though he didn't want anything fancy. 

“What do think of this place? Pretty cool, huh?” Harry asked. 

“Yeah, I like it,” Louis started. He was interrupted by the barista setting down Harry's drink. 

“Hot chocolate, whipped cream, for here,” said the barista, who had about nine hundred percent more piercings than your average Starbucks employee. 

“You ordered hot chocolate at a bondage coffee shop?” asked Louis, smiling a little. That was so Harry. 

“Yes,” said Harry. “I wanted some! I'm going to go sit over there,” he nodded with his chin. 

“I'll be there in a second,” said Louis. 

“Good,” said Harry. He turned and headed towards a small red velvet couch up near the front windows. 

“Can I get you anything?” the barista asked. 

“Just coffee,” said Louis. 

After he paid Louis carried his coffee towards the front of the cafe and pulled up a chair beside the red couch that Harry had claimed, which left a small coffee table between them. Harry's drink had come in a white ceramic cup so wide it was almost a small bowl. He had already eaten all the whipped cream off the top, and now he held it between two hands, waiting for it to cool. The sunlight coming in from the window caught the steam rising from the cup, and caught his hair, which was loose and curled almost to his shoulders. Louis just sat for a moment, taking this in. It made him... it made him want to be a better person. He wanted to be allowed this sight forever- to do whatever was needed to earn it back. He would do anything, anything Harry asked. Anything would be worth it. 

Harry looked up then, through his lashes, and that made Louis want something else entirely. Seriously, he would do _anything._ From now on, Harry's word was law. 

“So,” said Harry. “Let's not waste time. Be completely honest with each other, yeah?”

“Yes,” Louis agreed. 

“I am still really, really angry with you,” said Harry. “It's probably going to take a while to get over... that.” 

“Ah,” said Louis. Harry's anger was so completely justified there was no way Louis could fault him for it. “Yeah- I know... I mean- I get it.” 

“Alright,” said Harry. “It's also going to be a while before I trust you again.” 

Louis looked down. “I know.” Did he even deserve Harry's trust again? Louis wasn't sure. Maybe... maybe if he had been very good in some previous lifetime. His track record in this was one wasn't so hot. 

“But,” said Harry, more quietly than before, “I know now that you were going through a... a seriously missed up time and I didn't- I didn't really see it. Liam told me some things.” 

Louis swallowed. He had wondered about that- how much Liam had said. He felt like he needed to respond in some manner, so he nodded. He remembered the coffee in his hand and took a sip. 

“That doesn't excuse what you did,” said Harry. “But... it helps explain it.” 

“I completely fucked up,” said Louis. He met Harry's eyes, hard as that was. “I did not do the right thing. I shouldn't have left at all, but especially not like that- without any word. And later on... I should have... made a phone call or answered a damn email.” He stopped, wincing a little. Harry had sent- Harry had sent so many emails. They were gone now. He had deleted that account. Another thing he wished he could undo. “Not the right thing to do,” he added, for emphasis. 

“Yeah, it really wasn't,” said Harry frankly. 

“Complete agreement,” said Louis. 

“Shit idea,” said Harry. 

“Yes,” said Louis. 

“Probably the worst idea you've ever had,” said Harry. 

“Yeah, I think so,” said Louis.

Harry paused to take a long sip of his hot chocolate. Louis waited. 

“Well, I'm glad we're on the same page about that,” said Harry. “That's something.” 

Louis snorted. “Pretty low bar to aim for.”

“It helps, though,” said Harry. “Because I'd- I'd really like to try again.” 

Louis's heart did that thing again, but more painfully this time. “Really?” he asked. He had hoped, but...

“Yes,” said Harry. 

“I do too,” said Louis. “A lot.” That was putting it mildly.

“Things would have to be different though,” said Harry, bluntly. “We'd need to go more slowly this time. Actually talk about things.”

“I know...” said Louis. “And Harry-” he clutched at his coffee cup for support. He felt like he should be on his knees, grovelling. “I'm sorry. _God, I'm sorry for it._ For what I did. For everything.” He had apologized once before already, but probably a hundred times wouldn't be enough. 

Harry was looking at him seriously, and he nodded just a little. Not forgiveness, but acknowledgment. He looked like he would say something, then paused and seemed to change his mind. 

“Have you heard of Kink.com?” Harry asked. 

“What?” said Louis, thrown by the abrupt change of subject. 

“Kink.com,” said Harry. “It's a porn company. They host like, thirty different websites including Bound Gods, Kink Men, Naked Kombat... Butt Machine Boys...” 

“Oh. Right,” said Louis. “Yes, I know it.” Not that he'd had much opportunity to watch porn in the last few months. Not having wifi in your own house tended curb that type of activity. And trying to watch porn at Starbucks had just sounded way too awkward. Louis thought he might have been able to get away with it in this coffee shop, though. The small bookshelf to the right of the red velvet couch was full of books with titles like _Leather Sex, Ties that Bind, Sacred Kink_ and _Playing Well With Others._ The photo on the wall above the couch showed a woman's torso with intricate knot work surrounding her breasts. In fact, there was a girl sitting on the other side of the cafe with her back to the wall, laptop open and headphones in. She might be watching porn right now, if she had a good poker face. Or she might be doing homework. It was impossible to tell. 

“Good,” said Harry, seemingly pleased that Louis was keeping up so far. “Did you know that Kink.com is actually based right here in the city? It's probably the biggest porn company in San Francisco.” 

“I... did not know that,” said Louis. 

“Yeah, they're in this place called the Armory, up on Mission and Fourteenth. It's really enormous- you can see it on Google Earth if you zoom in.” Clearly, Harry had done some research.

“So, they what- film there?” Louis asked, not sure where this was going. 

“They do all kinds of things there!” said Harry. “Including- offer classes. I think we should take one.” 

“Classes?? No,” said Louis, without thinking. 

“What's wrong with a class?” asked Harry, frowning. 

Louis hesitated. The word _class_ was associated in his mind with words like _homework_ and _school,_ and, by extension, _last semester._ He had absolutely no desire to touch those topics with a ten foot pole. If he never had to take another class again in his life that would still be too fucking soon. 

“I just... really don't want to take any classes,” said Louis, and his voice came out sounding weirdly scared. He swallowed, knowing he had not given a proper answer. Not half an hour ago he had vowed to do anything Harry asked... but he had not counted on Harry asking for anything that _in any way_ resembled the education system. 

“Why not?” Harry asked. 

“I don't need someone to teach me how to have sex!” Louis exclaimed. He had turned away from fear and landed on a defensive anger. Seriously, the idea of a class at a porn studio was ridiculous and demeaning. What good did Harry think that would do? Unless he thought Louis _did_ need someone to teach him how to have sex... he shuddered away from that thought. 

Harry's cup hit his saucer with an angry clatter. 

“It's not just about sex, _Louis,_ it's about _communication-_ and if you say you don't need someone to teach you about that, you're lying,” Harry said in a tight voice. 

“Ah-” Louis backtracked immediately. “Well- ah- yeah, I could probably use some help... with that.”

“I'm so glad we agree,” said Harry, stiffly. He rubbed a hand over his forehead, like he had a headache starting there. Louis opened his mouth, but closed it quickly when Harry continued. 

“Look, I'd really like this to work, Louis...” he said, tiredly. “I really would. But we have to completely start over. We can't just go back to the way things were. We can't.”

_“I know,”_ said Louis, feeling like a failure already. He wanted to do whatever Harry asked, whatever was needed. But he hated the idea of a class, for absolutely no logical reason, and he didn't know how to explain. 

“How about this,” said Harry. “Obviously, you don't want to do the class. I don't know why. Whatever. But maybe if we went there you'd change your mind- or maybe I would, I don't know. The Armory does tours. We could go, check it out, and then decide.” 

“Yes, alright,” said Louis. “Let's do that.” He wasn't sure he wanted to, but Harry was compromising here, and he definitely needed to compromise as well. 

“Okay,” said Harry, sounding somewhat mollified. He pulled out his phone and brought up a web page he had saved. “Are you free either Saturday or Sunday this weekend?”

“Yes,” said Louis. He'd get himself free if he had to. He'd never called in sick before- he could always play that card. 

“The tour is an hour and a half. Do you want to go at one on Saturday, three on Saturday, or at five on Sunday?” Harry asked. 

“Let's go on Saturday at one,” said Louis, picking the soonest. 

Harry held out his phone. “You are paying for tickets, because you have a job. Also, you owe me.” 

Hard to argue with that. Louis paid $50 for two tickets, without complaint. He handed the phone back. 

“Alright,” said Harry. He stood up and stretched. Ran a hand through his hair and looked down at Louis. The sunlight outlined a halo of curls. He looked like a Renaissance painting. 

“I'll see you on Saturday, then,” said Harry. 

“Will we- will we just met right outside?” Louis asked, looking up at him. 

“I'm sure we'll find each other,” said Harry. He gave a little nod and made his way around the coffee table. He was silhouetted for one moment as he pushed open the door, then he was gone. 

Louis stared after him, replaying the whole conversation in his head, trying to figure out how he could have done it better. It hadn't been a complete disaster, but it hadn't been a wild success either. At least Harry still wanted to see him again... Louis looked down. He wanted to do something stupid like curl up on the little couch where Harry had been sitting to see if there was any warmth left in it. Or steal the cup that Harry's lips had touched. But he reminded himself that the new and improved Louis Tomlinson no longer stole plates or cutlery from restaurants, so when he stood up, he left it there.

***

After what felt like ages, Saturday afternoon arrived at last. Louis spent the entire walk worrying that he had not apologized enough and wondering if he should have brought something- like, maybe flowers. They'd had buckets and buckets of tulips in at work and Louis knew that Harry liked them, particularly the red ones. But if he'd brought flowers Harry would have had to carry them around for the rest of the day. Plus they were going on a tour of a porn studio. It would have been awkward to bring him something. Would it have been awkward? Yes, it would have been awkward. But maybe he should have done it anyway... ?

_Stop thinking about it!_ Louis tried to advise himself. It was hopeless. He was extremely glad that Harry still wanted to see him, but not entirely sure _why._ The not knowing why was doing his head in. But how on earth was he supposed to bring it up to ask?

The Armory began to dominate the Mission skyline as Louis drew closer. It looked like a medieval fortress. The entire outer wall was built of heavy rough stone with narrow defensible windows and towers at each corner. Louis had known the building was large, but even so, he had not been prepared for the size of it. Once again Harry was already there before him, making Louis worry that he was late- but no, actually, Harry was early. Also he smiled at Louis when he spotted him, so that was good. There were a few other people lingering conspicuously around the stairs but Louis ignored them. There was only one person he had come to see. Harry was leaning again the stone wall, dressed all in black today. Black boots, black jeans, black long sleeve shirt with three open buttons at the collar. Louis could see the thin tangled necklaces Harry always wore. He had twisted his fingers in those necklaces, once upon a time. But that was so long ago... now, he would have hesitated before so much as passing Harry a tissue. 

“Hello,” said Louis, almost shyly, when he was close enough. 

“Hi, how are you?” Harry asked, grinning. He seemed to be in a very good mood. Louis was impressively relieved. 

“Good, how're you?” Louis replied. 

“I got here so early,” said Harry. “There was no one else here when I got here! I was worried I'd come to the wrong door. This place is really massive isn't it?” 

Harry craned his head back to look at the closest tower. Louis followed his gaze up. High above them he could see a flag, the Kink.com logo in red on a black background, waving from the flag pole. 

“It's like a castle,” Louis agreed. 

“Can't wait to see the inside!” said Harry. He looked ridiculously excited to be here. 

“Yeah, it should be pretty cool,” said Louis, grinning as well. He was so, so thankful that he had agreed to this tour. It was very important that Harry had a good time today. It was very important that Harry had a good time every day that they hung out, so that he would continue to want to hang out in the future. Louis felt that he had not done a super good job making sure Harry had a good time on their last date, so this time he seriously needed to not fuck things up. He needed to completely follow Harry's lead. 

There was movement behind them. Someone inside had obviously opened the door, because the people from around the bottom of the stairs were now making their way in. Harry and Louis joined the small crowd. At the doors their ID cards were checked against a list by a security guard. Then they were in. Louis saw everyone covertly taking a look around. Clearly, no one had known what to expect. The entryway looked like an old fashioned hotel- marble floors, wood paneling, a high ceiling and an empty welcome desk. A sign directed them towards _Tours_ and also _Bathrooms,_ both down a small hallway to the left. The group filtered down the hall and into a large and informal room, something halfway between a break room at an office and a rec room in a college dorm. There was a fridge on one side, small tables and squishy couches scattered here and there, two lines of full bicycle racks. The floor was unpolished wood with a worn few carpets. It was a comfortable room, a backstage kind of room. A woman with short hair, hipster glasses, a short-sleeved button up shirt and jeans was waiting for them all inside. 

“Hello,” she called, as people formed into a loose semi-circle. Harry stood close by Louis's side. “I'm Alex, I'll be your guide today for this tour of the San Francisco Armory and the Kink.com film studios. We're going to wait just a few minutes for any late arrivals then we'll get started. Please take time to use the restrooms now if you need them- they are the only ones available until the very end of the tour, which is ninety minutes.”

Several people ducked out to take her advice. Harry had spotted something that interested him on one side wall, and Louis followed him over to take a look. It was a tiny gift shop, really just one glass-fronted case full of merchandise- mainly t-shirts and hoodies with the Kink.com logo but also some highly suggestive statues and a few black leather paddles and crops. Harry leaned in to check the prices. Louis immediately backed up a few steps to give him privacy. The very last thing he wanted was to seem over-familar. He also... didn't want to watch Harry check out sex toys. He knew they were in a porn studio and all, but he didn't really want Harry to think about him in regards to sex right now. They needed friendship again, and trust, before sex was even reconsidered. He needed today to just be enjoyable and fun, not sexy. They were going slow this time, that was important, because going fast hadn't worked out well at all. 

Louis glanced around the rest of the room and noticed a framed poster over the door with the headings _Mission_ and _Values_ written under the now familiar devil-tailed logo. He began to skim the bullet points written below. Harry would be interested in this. Louis turned to see Harry now inspecting a cork board covered in tacked up fliers and business cards. That could be interrupted. 

“Hey, come take a look at this,” Louis called back to Harry. Harry sauntered over and Louis pointed up at the sign.

  
Mission  
_We demystify and celebrate alternative sexualities  
by providing the most authentic kinky experiences. _

Values  
_*We uphold a safe, sane and consensual environment_  
*We provide a fun workplace which simulates innovation and creativity  
*We operate with honesty and integrity  
*We treat one another with professionalism and respect  
*We foster collaboration while maintaining individual accountability  
*We encourage candid, direct feedback  
*We are proud of who we are, what we do, and how we do it  


“Well,” said Harry. He was nodding appreciatively. “That's quite good.”

“I think I like this place,” said Louis. He was pleased by this discovery. He'd been pretty uncertain about this. 

“I definitely like this place, and we haven't even seen it yet!” said Harry. 

The voice of their tour guide called out from behind them. “I think we're about ready to start, if everyone could gather in again,” she said. Harry and Louis turned back to face her. Everyone else in the group migrated in as well. Louis took a moment to actually took around at the other members of this tour for the first time. He was a bit surprised to see so many straight people. He and Harry were the only... well, they were the only two guys who seemed to have come in together. Also, pretty much everyone was older than them, early thirties perhaps, to what- late forties, early fifties? He'd never specifically thought about it before, but middle aged married people were just as likely to be kinky as anyone, Louis supposed. 

“Welcome to the Armory. Hopefully everyone knows this already,” said Alex. “But just in case... Kink.com is a porn company, and most of what we are seeing today will be sets which are used on a weekly if not daily basis to film scenes. This is not going to be a military or history tour, so if that's what you came for, now would be a good time to excuse yourself. Umm... some ground rules. You are allowed to take pictures, but if you want to please stay to the front of the group so that you can be one of the first ones into each set and not linger behind and slow the group down. Also, please ask questions! The tour will be more interesting if you do, and I can relate my comments more specifically towards what you'd like to know. Anyone got any right now?” 

Louis could see Harry's lips twitching in the beginning of a smile, but he didn't speak up, and neither did anyone else. 

“Alright then, let's go!” said Alex and she led them out of the break room, across the marble entryway, and to a magnificent set of stairs with sweeping handrails. As they all filtered down the stairs two people broke off from the back of the group and headed out the front doors- jumping ship already. 

“Huh,” said Louis. He raised his eyebrows at Harry. 

“Got cold feet,” said Harry, grinning. 

“Or they somehow failed to notice all the porn references on the website when they got the tickets,” said Louis. It was a pricey mistake- the website had said quite specifically that once you entered the building there were no refunds for any reason. 

“The url is kink.com,” Harry laughed. “What did they expect?” 

“Who knows,” said Louis. 

“Can I get your attention please...” said Alex. She had stopped in front of a large painting in the landing of the stairwell, which showed a group of people seated dramatically in front of a vaguely sci-fi background, something like the door of a space ship or space station. “The man in the center there is Peter Acworth, Kink's founder. We will be talking about him more in the first set. The others around him are some of Kink's main directors- I'll touch on some of them as we enter their sets.” Louis saw a good-looking man with average height and build, brown hair, mid-thirties, smiling proudly out of the painting. If you'd seen him in the street you never would have guessed he ran a vast porn empire. 

They continued down another flight stairs and into a wide hallway which ran into two other perpendicular hallways at either end. All the way down Harry's elbow bumped against Louis's. Louis had almost forgotten about this, Harry's complete incomprehension of personal space. It was rather bizarre, given his excellent sense of spacial awareness on the dance floor. But if you walked next to Harry on the sidewalk half the time you'd end up stepping on his feet. Most of them had just gotten used to it, but it bugged Zayn. Louis recalled Zayn's frequent refrains- “Harry, the sidewalk is a meter wide for a reason!”- as he steered Harry out of his space. “Sorry, sorry!” Harry would say. But by the end of the block he'd be right at Zayn's elbow again. “Walk next to Niall,” Zayn would demand, exasperated. Niall would solve the problem by linking arms with Harry, which often led to skipping, which in turn led to singing and was just a downhill slide into general ridiculousness. 

Louis has missed it more that he could say. 

Alex pushed open a doorway half way down the hall and hit a light switch, before gesturing for them all to enter the set. The tour group cautiously stepped into the room after her. The room was about sixteen feet wide and maybe thirty or so feet long. It had a high ceiling with pads of foam stuffed into the upper corners for sound control. The back two thirds of the room was paneled in rough wood, like the inside of a barn. The walls and ceiling were criss-crossed with various beams and pipes, a few heavy bolts and hooks, something in the back that looked like a circuit breaker. There were two square posts holding up the shingled ceiling. Between them stood a barren wood bed frame, empty but for a net of ropes, such as might hold an old-fashioned straw bolster mattress in a period Western film. The floor just inside door of the room was cement with various markings in blue masking tape, probably lighting reminders. The back part of room had a second wood floor laid over the cement. When Louis stepped onto it, however, he was surprised to find it sink beneath his shoes. What had appeared as a rough hardwood floor was actually a large painted foam mat with some give to it. Harry squeaked a little when he stepped onto it- he'd been staring up at the ceiling and it had apparently startled him. 

“Can everyone see?” asked Alex from beside the nearer wooden pillar. “Great. This room is the main set for Hogtied, which was the very first porn website Peter started, back in 1997. Peter is from England originally, but he moved to the US to study finance at Columbia University. He was working towards a PhD when he found this tabloid story about a British fireman who'd made over £250,000 in just a few months selling porn photos online, just pictures, not even anything very clever. Peter decided he could do just as well or better. He'd always been interested in bondage, so he decided to build a website focused specifically on BDSM. The site started to get so profitable that he quit grad school to work on it full time...” 

Harry was staring up at the ceiling again. Louis watched Harry's face from the corner of his eye, wondering what he was thinking. Harry's hands hung loose and relaxed by his sides. He fiddled when he was bored or nervous, Louis remembered that. But what about his shoulders? What did they do? 

Suddenly Harry leaned over and whispered to Louis, “I'm trying to remember if I've ever watched anything that was filmed in this room.” 

Louis considered his response. “You know,” he finally whispered back, “Usually when I watch porn... I'm not really looking at the walls?” 

“I know, me neither,” said Harry. “But after this I probably will be. I'll be like- pausing my porn right in the middle to stare at some weird pipe in the corner to see if it looks familiar...” 

Louis let out a startled laugh and a woman in front of them turned around to give him a funny look. Harry straightened up quickly and Louis tuned back in to the tour guide. 

“... By that point Peter had moved to San Francisco. Sales were dropping because competing sites were starting to offer the same material. Peter decided to switch over to producing entirely new content, sometimes acting it in himself, sometimes using models he found through Craigslist or through friends in the scene. In 2000 he started our second site, Fucking Machines, which is now managed by another director, Tomcat. It became extremely popular and gave us the business model and encouragement we needed to branch out into a whole host of websites, each featuring a very specific kink or fetish. Today Kink.com hosts over thirty different websites- our most recent launches being the Dungeon Sex site and Kink University.” 

“That's the site that does the classes,” Harry supplied in a low tone. 

“Ah,” said Louis, carefully neutral. 

“Does anyone have any questions?” Alex asked. 

A hand went up very tentatively in the front of the group. Alex nodded encouragingly to the brave soul. 

“What's up with the floor?” A man in a very nondescript gray sweater asked.

Alex smiled. “We try to make sure that every sensation within a shoot adds to the pleasure and the appeal for the models. It turns out very few people are turned on by sore knees.” 

“Well, I'll second that,” said Harry quietly, and Louis snorted a laugh. The stern woman in front of them gave them another look. Louis glared back. This woman needed to back off. She was not allowed to threaten the awesomeness of Harry's day. 

“We're in a porn studio, not a library,” Louis muttered. Harry rolled his eyes in agreement when the woman's back was turned. 

“How many people subscribe to the websites?” asked a woman dressed all in black, in a corset and heels. 

“We have over sixty thousand regular subscribers,” said Alex. “We are the world's largest fetish porn company.” 

“How long have you been in this building?” someone else asked. 

“We moved into the Armory in 2006- it had been sitting pretty much empty for the past thirty years when we got here, so as you can imagine, it was quite a mess! There's still a creek flowing through the lowest basement- I'll be showing that to you later on in the tour. Let's move on,” said Alex. 

She led the way back out of the Hogtied room and just across the hall. Harry and Louis were some of the first ones into this new set, and Louis disliked it immediately. It looked like a slaughter house, or maybe like a horror film. The room had stained walls, meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, a dirty sink in one corner and a grungy cement floor which slanted down towards a drain in the center. It was distinctly creepy. Louis got a slightly mean sense of satisfaction from seeing the noise-police lady looking very uncomfortable. 

“This is our slaughter house set,” said Alex. “One of the main features of this room is that it's waterproof. We can run water from there-” she pointed to a hose-like shower head in one corner, “Or completely flood the room if we want to, and let it drain out afterward.” 

Harry was standing just behind Louis's shoulder. 

“Really not into water sports,” he muttered, grimacing. “Also, I kind of want to be a vegetarian now.” 

Louis nodded. In the corner opposite the shower, hanging from one of the meat hooks, was what looked like most of a skinned and half-butchered cow. He could tell it was fake, but it was still disgusting. 

“Anyone have any questions?” Alex asked brightly. No one did. 

Alex took them down the hall to another room, almost the polar opposite of the set they had just left behind. This was another long narrow room, probably fifteen feet wide and forty or forty five feet long. The whole room was white. Blank white walls, a white ceiling and a smooth white floor interrupted only by two dark trapdoors. 

“This is the main set for one of our popular lesbian sites, Electro Sluts,” said Alex. “The aesthetic for this room was inspired by George Lucas' early cult classic film _THX 1138,_ though the site is more generally based on bondage and electricity use. There are a few cool features- let me show you.” She reached down towards the smaller of the two trapdoors on the floor and lifted up the metal covering to reveal a small dark box, about two by two feet. Louis looked down into it, nonplussed. It looked too small for anything he could think of. 

“Head cage,” said Alex. “For someone suspended from there.” She directed their attention to a sturdy hook set into the ceiling. 

_Ohhh,_ thought Louis. That made sense now. Wouldn't have turned him on, but it takes all kinds. 

“And this is full body cage, obviously,” Alex had opened the other trapdoor to reveal a larger box, this one closer to three by four feet, also set into the floor. This one had bars across the top. 

“We try to keep them both covered when we're not filming- don't want anyone to fall in and sprain an ankle,” said Alex. Someone chuckled, though the head cage had clearly thrown a few people. 

“Questions before we move on?” she asked. 

“I've got a question that's not related to this room specifically,” said Harry, surprising Louis. “I was wondering about the fucking machines... where do those come from? Do you buy them from somewhere, or... ?” 

“Actually, we make almost all of them here,” said Alex. “A lot of people are curious about that, but I have to let you down and say that pretty much all of them are one of a kind. We've got a small creative team that designs and builds new ones.” 

“I see,” said Harry. His voice sounded perfectly casual but Louis, standing just beside him, could see he was blushing a little. “They're cool,” Harry added. God, Harry looked adorable when he blushed. The pinker his cheeks got the more you noticed his lips, and it just made Louis think of all the other things that made Harry flush. Having his hands tied. Having his thighs scrapped with a comb. Having some new weird thing in his ass... Louis looked away. 

_Friendship,_ he reminded himself. _Trust._

“Aren't they cool, though?” said Alex. “The team came up with this really unique one made out of a modified lawn mower. But it's so loud we could probably only film with it outside.” She laughed, and so did a few other people, breaking the tension. Alex covered up both the floor cages and led them back out into the hallway. This time when Harry's elbow bumped against Louis's, Louis took one step back to let Harry get a little ahead. He needed space, at least for a moment here. 

This was the thing. Harry didn't need to do a sexy thing for Louis to find him attractive. Even when Harry was being a complete dork- making his frog face, or going crossed-eyed over someone's baby- Louis still found him kind of unbearably hot. He'd spent four months in a state where to see Harry was to want to fuck him. Harry would reach down to pull on his boots and Louis would want to seize his hips from behind. Harry would run a hand through his hair and Louis would want to curl his fingers into a fistful of it. Harry would drain half a water bottle during rehearsal and Louis would want to kiss his throat. Harry would wipe a hand across his mouth and Louis would want to bite his lips. And nine times out of ten, Harry would let him. He had let Louis drag him out of class. He had let Louis pull him out of his seat at a restaurant. He had let Louis push him back against the wall, push him down in the back seat of Liam's car, push him down into his queen size bed. Harry had let him get away with everything. It was a problem. Self-control had never been one of Louis's strengths, and when it came to Harry, he was useless. 

Louis still wanted Harry. At times, desperately. But if his breakdown and the subsequent fucking mess he'd made of his life had taught him anything, it was that he needed balance too. When he had loved Harry, things had been wonderful. But the semester had eaten away at him with bad grades and worse performances, disappointment, jealousy, exhaustion, failure... Louis had felt his life slipping away from him until Harry was the only thing left it felt like he could control. He had gone over the edge of love into obsession and everything had been poisoned by it. 

That's why they needed to go slow. To stay balanced. To stay safe. That's why Louis had to be careful, and let Harry take the lead. It was hard though, because Louis wasn't used to following. He was used to initiating. He had developed the habit of demanding exactly what he wanted and receiving it immediately. He'd been a fucking asshole, basically. The fact that Harry had been pretty into it had actually kind of made it worse. Harry might never have stopped him... Louis had had to stop himself. 

Alex had led the tour group into a wide space open space, forty feet across and a hundred feet long. 

“The three sets we've just seen are some of our permanent ones,” said Alex. “We also have some areas that we dress and break down regularly for different scenes. This is one of them. Take a look at the floor- this used to be an indoor pool, but it was filled in.” Louis could hear their footsteps echoing in the nearly empty hall as people moved around. Harry's boots clicked against the floor, but Louis's scruffy trainers were nearly silent. 

“This is also one of the areas we sometimes rent to outside film companies,” Alex explained. Back in 2011 several scenes from _About Cherry,_ an indie film about a girl's journey into the San Francisco porn industry, were filmed here. One of the stars of that movie was James Franco- he got interested in Kink.com while working here and later produced a documentary about the company. Let's see- I think there's something set up down there, let's go look.” She began to lead the way towards the far end of the hall where a white curtain had been strung across the space. In front of this curtain was a wrecked living room- overturned armchairs, a broken lamp, books and papers strewn across the floor and the uneven carpets. 

“Looks like someone had breakup sex here,” Harry observed to Louis. He was standing just at Louis's elbow again. 

“Or makeup sex,” Louis suggested, a bit cautiously.

“Or just, you know... your side of a bedroom,” Harry drawled. 

“Ha ha, very funny,” said Louis, rolling his eyes. Harry was smirking. Louis remembered suddenly how they used to joke about that- whether the mess of Harry's room was his fault or Louis's fault. But at the same time his mind flashed back to the place he slept in now, in the run-down house in the Mission. He didn't live with Harry anymore, he hadn't for months. He lived on a shitty mattress in a closet. And he lived there because he had _left Harry._ It had seemed like the only solution at the time... Now, for an unknown reason, Harry was granting him a second chance. Louis did not know why, but he wanted it to work. The first step, he realized, was probably just to relax a little. Harry had been acting perfectly friendly and talkative all day. Louis needed to stop walking on eggshells around him and just let himself respond without over analyzing everything. Make conversation. 

“What was-, ” started the man in the grey sweater, in exactly the same moment as the woman in the black corset asked “So is that-,” they both stopped, embarrassed. 

“I'm sorry, excuse me,” said Corset. 

“No, no, after you,” said Sweater. Corset smiled, and turned to Alex to ask her question. 

“I was just wondering if that documentary you just mentioned had been released yet,” said Corset. 

“Yes, it came out in 2013,” said Alex. “I think you can find it online.” 

“Excellent,” said Corset. “I'd like to see it.” 

“I was wondering if you knew what this set was for,” asked Sweater. 

“Actually... I have no idea,” Alex laughed. “But I know they finished with it yesterday and it will probably get cleaned up on Monday. Lets cut through here to the prop area.” She walked right through the trashed room, parted the white curtains, and led them through to a hallway on the other side.

Louis had thought the previous hall was large, but it was nothing compared to the size of the prop storage area. It went on and on and on- rows and rows of towering shelves filled a huge space easily two or three hundred feet long. Stacks and stacks of furniture- tables, chairs, couches, beds, lamps, bookshelves, desks, dressers. Whole aisles of costumes- fifty clear plastic boxes of shoes, racks of coats, pants, dresses. Coils of rope, metal wire, electrical wire, cord, twine, braided leather. And then there was the weird stuff. Cages of every size. An iron maiden. A huge pentagram. A giant hamster wheel, big enough for a person. Harry was gaping, and Louis knew he probably was as well. Anything you could possibly think of to tie someone up to, or bend someone over, or trap someone in, was probably stashed somewhere in the Kink.com prop storage. Several people had gotten out their phones to take pictures. 

“How big is this place...?” someone asked. It was the question on everyone's minds right now. Well, that and _what kind of porn do you film in a giant hamster wheel._

“Whole building is four floors,” said Alex. “It covers over two hundred thousand square feet- more than two acres.” 

“Holy shit,” said Harry. “We've only seen half of one floor...!” 

“They're probably not going to show us everything,” said Louis. 

“I wish we could see everything,” said Harry, wistfully. 

“I'm sure some of this building is boring,” said Louis. “Like- they probably have a finance office or something. Very dull.” 

Harry elbowed him. “Shut up, you're ruining my moment.” 

Louis grinned at him. Relax and just respond. 

Alex led them past the very end of the props- an area full of chalk boards, old fashioned globes, piles of dictionaries and school desks, mixed in with dentist chairs and doctor's exam tables. She flicked on a switch and led them through a door in the back into a dim underground room. The air that met Louis's face smelled of damp soil and rust. They were in another cavernous space, a poorly lit room with a floor made of packed earth. Alex urged them down a roughly built ramp, stepping around the puddles and loose boards on the dirty floor. Louis stepped carefully, not wanting to end up with one of his sneakers in a mud puddle. Harry, safe in his leather shoes, didn't need to worry. He strolled right over to Alex and peered through the chain link fence behind her. 

“Come look!” he called to Louis. When Louis reached his side he saw a flow of water, orangy-brown with silt or pollution, flowing through a channel in the floor. 

“That's Mission Creek,” Alex told them. “Or what's left of it. This is the only place now you can see it- all of the rest is underground.” 

Louis thought this bit was pretty well underground too- it was buried under four floors of porn studios. How much more underground could you get? It was a good thing he'd never been bothered by claustrophobia. Harry was gazing down into the water, as if he might see something there. A glimpse of the future, maybe, or ghosts of the past. 

“Right after Peter bought the Armory, this whole basement flooded with over five feet of water,” Alex told the group. Several people cast the tiny creek worried looks. “But it's such a cool place we still try to film down here when we can.” 

“No one is going to believe us when we tell them about this,” Harry remarked to Louis, as they turned away from the water. 

“How many people were you planning to tell about your porn studio visit?” Louis asked, raising his eyebrows. He probably wouldn’t tell anyone but not because he thought it should be secret. The only person he would have told was Harry and Harry was here. 

“Just Niall, Zayn, Liam, and possibly my sister,” said Harry. 

Louis laughed. “Be sure to give Liam _all_ the details.” 

“Oh, I will,” said Harry, a bit wickedly. 

Alex led them back up the ramp and clicked the lights off behind them, leaving the room and the creek in darkness. Louis let Harry get a little ahead of him again but watched his back as they cut through the end of the props area and back into the hallways. His perfect dancer's posture. His ass, in those jeans... God. Alex opened another door and let the tour group into a room with bench seating running around three walls. The fourth wall had a cage set into it in the place an ordinary room might have a door. In fact, the cage formed a kind of door- though it's empty bars another room on the other side could be seen. Around this cage hung an artistic tangle of rusty chains and glowing light bulbs dangling on long black wires from the ceiling. 

“Feel free to get into the cage if you want to,” said Alex. “This is usually one of the most popular places for people to get pictures.” 

“I want a picture!” declared Harry at once. He pushed his phone into Louis's hand and skipped over to stand in front of the cage before anyone else. He planted his hands on his hips and smiled for the camera. Then he got inside and swung the cage door partway shut, grinning like a maniac through the bars, then pouting, then making several other extremely silly faces. Someone laughed. Louis, smiling himself, took several snapshots of each. Harry pushed the door open again and started to step down to let someone else have a turn. Then he paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. He turned to the side, planted his right foot, lifted his left leg and held out his arms in a graceful arabesque. His jeans were too tight to really let him extend properly, so the leg was raised slightly less than the ideal angle- Louis took three pictures in quick succession anyway. Alex clapped a little and Harry turned to give her a small bow. 

Harry wanted to see the pictures right away, so Louis handed the phone back and watched as Harry scrolled through them. 

“These are _great,_ thanks,” said Harry. “Anddd that's my new profile picture...” 

Louis leaned over to see Harry selecting one of the ballet poses. 

“Do you want a picture?” Harry asked. “I could take it.” 

“Sure,” said Louis. 

Harry's enthusiasm had broken the ice and several other people from the group stepped up to get pictures. A couple in their mid-thirties, who had been holding hands the entire tour, posed together under the chains and the lights. It was oddly romantic. Corset handed her phone to Sweater and asked him to take a picture of her posing alone. He did so, then shyly requested the same favor. Louis waited on the side until they were done. He just stood in front of the cage with his hands in his pockets when his turn came. 

“Come on, smile!” said Harry. Louis smiled a little, and Harry beamed at him in response. A moment later, when they both bent their heads over Harry's phone to have a look, he realized that in none of the pictures did his gaze met the camera. It was Harry's eyes he'd smiled into.

“This one's the best,” said Harry. He had tipped his head in consideration and Louis felt a curl brush against his cheek. 

“Pretty good, yeah,” said Louis. Just a little bit breathless. _Trust and friendship,_ he reminded himself. “Thanks.”

“If I had your current email address...” said Harry, looking at him sidelong. This close his eyes were very, very green. “I could send it to you.” 

“Right,” said Louis. “Of course!” He gave Harry his new email. He would have to remember to actually check it soon. He could carry his laptop in to work, maybe. Or to Starbucks. 

Pretty soon everyone was done with their pictures and Alex led them across the hall to a door directly opposite. This one opened into a fully furnished speakeasy style saloon. A long wooden bar ran down the left side of the room, with small tables and chairs along the right side and clustered in the back. Behind the bar were several back-lit glass shelves full of liqueur bottles, and over the tables in the rear three stuffed animal heads peered down on them all from above. 

“Why don't you all find a seat somewhere and sit for a minute while I tell you about this set, and a little more about our filming process,” said Alex. She went all the way to the very back of the saloon and stood on a bench, leaning against the wall so everyone could see her. Harry and Louis pulled out chairs at the same small table close to the door. 

“So.... come here often?” Harry asked, planting an elbow on the table and wiggling an eyebrow at Louis. 

“Oh yeah, all the time,” Louis deadpanned. 

“Come for the kinky porn but stay for the stuffed antelope?” said Harry, laughing. 

“My kind of evening!” said Louis. 

On the other side of the room Alex cleared her throat to gather their attention. 

“California has some pretty strict laws prohibiting nudity and alcohol in the same establishments,” she said. “So we had to build our own bar set to film in.”

As Alex went on to tell them that all of the alcohol behind the bar was actually fake, Louis found himself wondered whether Harry was just joking about hitting on him, or if Harry was actually genuinely hitting him. Now that he thought about it, Harry's casual acquisition of his email had been pretty smooth. That probably would have worked even if they had been strangers. He pondered Harry's profile, trying not to let hope overshadow reason too heavily. It was weird how he felt that he both knew Harry intimately and not at all. Knew exactly what turned him on, but never what he was thinking.

“Most of what we film in here are public humiliation set ups,” Alex was saying. “The scenes we film are generally unscripted. Usually a director will come up with an idea or concept, look through our pool of models, and suggest the idea to a pair or group of models. We only want models who are genuinely interested in the content that we produce and enjoy the work environment. After that, much of a scene is improv. James Franco commented that the dynamic he saw here between the directors and models reminded him of the dynamic on Saturday Night Live. Most of our models are local. Some come in for just one shoot, others will work with us repeatedly or begin working regularly with a single director. All of our models complete a Yes No Maybe list when filling out their application, so the directors know what they are and are not comfortable with. We also use safe words during shoots. If a model says 'Red'- meaning stop- more than one or two times during a shoot a director will know there is a problem. Possibly a misunderstanding or error in communication about the idea for the scene, something that needs to be re-negotiated. We also require both pre- and post- shoot interviews with the models, to check in how they felt about the experience and get feedback to use in the future.” 

Harry's fucking lips though. Louis warmed just thinking about them. He was trying to listen to Alex but letting himself stare at Harry was extremely distracting. He shook his head and turned his attention back to their guide. Alex was looking around at them all, as if wanting to impress a point upon them. 

“Ethical treatment of our models is very important to Kink.com,” she said seriously. “We want to make sure that everyone we work with would be happy to work with us again. Does anyone have any questions about the filming process, or about how to become a model?” 

A woman seated at a table in the middle of the room raised a very tentative hand. Louis was surprised to see that it was the stern librarian lady who had glared at him in the very first room. Surely she couldn't have a question about becoming a “model” here. She had consistently walked at the very back of the group, watching everything suspiciously. She had stood on the side with her arms folded and her brows knit as people had posed for photos with the chains and the cage. Louis had no idea why she'd spent $25 on a ticket just to look like she was sucking lemons through the whole tour. Seriously.

“Yes?” said Alex, like an encouraging school teacher. 

“I was wondering, uh,” said the woman. Even her voice was sour. “About the- about the main, um, main event,” she said awkwardly. “Like... does the director tell the- the models when to...” She trailed off. 

“When to...?” Alex prompted. 

“Does the director tell the man when to- you know...” She was blushing furiously and couldn't seem to finish a sentence. “Like, at the end of the scene...” 

“When to _come?”_ Harry muttered. 

“Possibly the word she's looking for is _ejaculate,”_ Louis supplied quietly. 

“D'you think maybe I should write it down for her?” Harry asked. Louis snorted. 

“Don't know if that would help,” he muttered. The woman was now glaring down at the table top as if trying to burn the varnish off with her eyes. 

Alex cut in with an answer, letting her off the hook. “As I said, most of the scene is really improv. A director may film up to three or four hours of material, then cut it down to a twenty or forty minute episode. Everyone here works from ten to six. Usually the hours before lunch are for prep, and after lunch is for shooting. ” 

A man in the back spoke up. “Have you ever worked as a model here?” he asked, sleaze thick in his voice. Louis raised his eyebrows. 

“I'm just in events and outreach,” said Alex easily. “I've got a business degree from UC Santa Cruz- lots of USCS alums work here, actually.” 

“Do you enjoy working here?” asked Corset. 

“I do,” said Alex. “It's a very creative company, really good communication, a lot of focus on community outreach. I have a health plan and a 401K. No complaints,” she smiled, and stepped down from her bench. “Let's keep moving. There's a lot more I want to show you before our time is up.” 

Harry and Louis ducked out the door, then stood to the side and waited for the rest of the tour group to filter out. 

“Wonder if she gets asked that on every tour,” Harry mused. 

“Maybe. She handled it pretty well,” said Louis. He considered their tour guide for the first time. She was only a little over five feet tall, but she moved with efficiency and authority. “She'd doing a pretty good job, I think,” he said. Since Louis's only goal for the day had been Harry's enjoyment of it (which seemed pretty well secured) he felt like he'd got his money's worth. 

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I was hoping we'd get to see some fucking machines though, and I'm pretty sure we're not going to.” 

“Well, maybe next time,” said Louis. Harry cast him a considering look at this. 

Alex led them all next into a square room with a large white wrestling mat filling most of the floor. The red logos on the wall and in the center of the mat read _Ultimate Surrender,_ and Alex told them at this was the set of a lesbian wrestling series that had been streaming live shows since 2008. The twist was that they were often filmed with a full audience of cheering spectators and at the end of a bout the winner would fuck the loser. 

“Kind of sounds like the winner and loser both win,” said Harry. 

“Maybe they do,” said Louis. 

He thought about that as the tour group filed back out of the wrestling room. He needed to set himself up into more situations where everybody could win. Or better yet- a place where it wasn't a contest at all, just two people enjoying themselves and not worrying about the rest. He wondered if he and Harry could ever get there. 

In the hallway outside Alex paused the group to point out two huge blue plastic barrels set on wheeled castors. “Lube,” she explained. “We buy it in fifty-five gallon barrels. We use one up about every three months.” She continued on. 

“Holy crap,” said Harry. 

“Come on,” said Louis, nodding his head. Harry was staring and the rest of the tour group was passing them by. 

“Holy crap,” Harry repeated, now trailing behind slowly. The group was now trickling back to the stairs and up to a higher floor. 

“Imagine what you could do with that much lube...” said Harry, gazing off into some private vision. 

“Aside from the obvious?” asked Louis. 

“You could fill a bathtub,” said Harry. “Imagine having sex in a whole bathtub full of lube!” 

“What a waste!” laughed Louis. He could just picture that too. Harry _would_ pour the whole barrel into a tub. He'd probably throw in two or three rubber ducks for good measure.

“Why a waste?” asked Harry, looking down at him. 

“Well, sure it might be fun _once,”_ Louis granted him. “But say you've just poured all that lube into a bath and had sex in it or whatever- then what? Are you going to try to get it all back into the barrel? Are you just going to leave it there in the tub and scoop out a little at a time when you want it? Would you even what to use it again? Probably not!” 

Harry started laughing. “This is the weirdest topic.” They turned the corner at the stair's landing and continued up, at the very back of the group. 

“You definitely brought it up first,” said Louis, but he was also grinning. “I'm just _saying_ it seems a little wasteful to use up a porn studio's three month allowance of lube all in one go.” 

“Are you turning into a like- a recycling nut working at Whole Foods?” Harry asked mock suspiciously. “Are you all ecologically friendly and green now?” 

“No,” laughed Louis. “Just trying not to waste money! I'm broke all the time.” 

“I don't know,” said Harry. “Sounds like Whole Foods logic to me. They've indoctrinated you.”

“Yes, they've brainwashed me and I no longer use plastic water bottles,” said Louis, rolling his eyes. 

“It's like a healthy, expensive cult,” said Harry. 

“You coming?” asked a man ahead of them, and Louis realized that he was holding the door open for them and they hadn't noticed. When Harry and Louis stepped through they found themselves on a balcony at least twenty off the ground with a vast space opened up before them. Alex was already talking and they'd missed the beginning but Louis gathered that this auditorium had previously been a drill court but was now used as a community center. The eighty foot high barrel ceiling covered almost an acre of event space. Heavy exposed steel beams held up the mezzanine which ran all the way around the huge room. Light from the tall narrow windows on either end slanted down onto a polished hardwood floor. 

“This space can hold almost four thousand people,” Alex was saying from the other side of the group. “We've had touring theater companies rent it for plays, clubs rent it for raves, social organizations rent it for fundraisers. It's also used pretty frequently as a film set for various movies- that's what's going on down there now,” she pointed down to where a skeleton crew of workmen were framing up removable walls on an apartment with no ceiling. Beside this was a fully furnished lobby set, looking like a doll's house from above, with scaffolded rigs for lighting and cameras surrounding it. 

“George Lucas filmed here when he was working on the first _Star Wars_ movie back in the seventies,” said Alex. “That was before Peter purchased the Armory. Since then we've done a lot of renovations to the auditorium- replaced all the windows, put in the maple floors, sound installations, that kind of thing.” 

Harry had pulled out his phone again. 

“Take a picture of me with all the windows in the background,” he requested and Louis obliged. 

“What movie are they filming down there right now?” someone asked. 

Alex smiled. “I'm not allowed to say.” She led them back into the Armory proper. Across the hall ahead of them was a heavy glass door, with a small paper sign tapped to it reading “NOTICE: Kink.com Staff and Models only beyond this point. Thank you.” Louis could see a hallway much like the one they were in on the other side. All of the doors in that hallway were closed. Alex turned and led them up again to the highest floor. 

As soon as they left the staircase Louis could tell this floor was different. For one thing a plush carpet ran all the way down the hall under their feet. Also the walls were lined with pictures in heavy gilt frames. It wasn't immediately clear whether they were photos or photorealistic paintings but either way it was some of the most graphic erotic art that Louis had ever seen. The photos at Wicked Grounds were nothing compared to this. A collared and cuffed man licking a dominatrix’s strap on. A woman gasping in pleasure with suction pumps attached to her nipples. A woman's spread and bound thighs, the outer lips of her vagina ringed with piercings. A man being simultaneously choked and fucked by a leather clad male partner. A transwoman with full breasts and an erection, brandishing a crop over the huddled figure at her feet. 

A noticeable hush had fallen over the group. 

“Welcome to the Upper Floor,” said Alex, grinning into the silence. The capital letters were apparent in her enunciation. She pushed open a heavy wooden door and gestured grandly for them to enter the richly decorated parlor beyond. 

“Wowwww,” Harry said quietly as he and Louis stepped inside together. 

The first thing that Louis registered was the red wallpaper. From the high ceilings to the wainscoting the walls were covered in an oversized Victorian pattern the color of red wine. The windows had tasseled red curtains that fell all the way to the plush Oriental rugs that covered the floor. There were burgundy velvet sofas, coffee tables, chests, and armoires made of dark polished wood. At one end of the room was a fireplace with a vase of fresh flowers placed on the mantle. A grandfather clock in a corner completed the feeling of elegant upper class splendor. Amids this atmosphere the blatantly kinky items stood out boldly- somehow both completely defying and completely melding with the aesthetic of the room. There was a black leather spanking bench beside the chaise lounge. There was a St Andrew's cross and a life-sized statue of a seated woman, bound in artistically knotted rope. There were several bondage tables and suspension hooks hanging at various points from the ceiling. 

“This area of the Armory is a little different,” said Alex, once people had spread out into the room, maneuvering between (and sometimes looking askance at) the furniture. “Ever since Peter purchased this building he had the goal of capturing that illusive concept- the twenty four-seven BDSM lifestyle space, the kind of fantasy world described in books like _The Story of O._ The Upper Floor is modeled on an Edwardian Great House, were the social hierarchy of the household was ruled by a strict set of guidelines. Think Downton Abbey, but with regularly scheduled orgies.” She paused, obviously used to the chuckles that this description aroused. 

Louis became aware of Harry, who was standing right behind him. Literally right behind him- the toes of Harry's boots were touching his heels. Harry's attention seemed to have been caught by a red cabinet just to their left. Two fold-out wings of the cabinet were open to reveal a beautiful display of leather. Red and black floggers with thick, braided handles. Paddles of various shapes and sizes, two shelves of collars, three shelves of cuffs. At least, Louis was pretty sure that was what Harry was looking at. He couldn't see Harry without turning his head but Harry was making these like- little sounds. Little back of the throat sounds. Louis fucking knew what those sounds meant. He was highly aware of what turned Harry on. He concentrated one hundred and fifty percent of his attention on their tour guide, letting her voice wash over him. 

“In the Upper Floor, Masters, Mistresses and slaves all have specific roles in an interactive experience of sexual fantasy fulfillment,” Alex was saying. “This is a completely unique place to explore expressions of dominance and submission.”

“Louis,” Harry whispered, just behind Louis's ear. Louis tried to ignore this, focusing on Alex's never-ending flow of facts. She was certainly very informative. 

“Events held here are streamed live,” Alex continued. “This room, the Dining Room, the Parlor and the Slave Quarters are all hooked up to webcams. Viewers at home can also interact with the participants, suggesting specific punishments, rewards or challenges. Often it's votes from the viewers that allow slaves to advance in their training.” 

“Louis,” Harry whispered again. 

“What, Harry?” Louis whispered back. 

“Louis, I want to get off,” Harry whispered, and there was that tug in his voice that made Louis's dick react immediately. 

Fuck. 

“What, right now?” Louis whispered. 

“Right now,” Harry whispered and Louis could feel Harry's breath on the back of his neck. 

“Not a super good time,” Louis replied, a little hoarsely. People were starting to look at them- probably couldn't hear what Harry was saying, but could tell they were whispering. Louis tried to keep his expression perfectly neutral. 

“All parties choose to engage for mutual enjoyment,” Alex was saying now. “There is an explicitly negotiated power structure guided by principles of consensual power exchange.” Some of the tour group were nodding along with her words while others looked progressively more and more lost. 

“Louis,” Harry whispered. 

“What, Harry,” Louis whispered again. 

“Louis, I'm so fucking hard,” Harry breathed into Louis's ear. 

_What a coincidence,_ Louis thought, a little hazily. Except that Harry had conveniently hidden himself behind Louis, while Louis had nothing to hide behind. Everyone in the goddamn room could see what was happening to him. He wished he'd worn a longer shirt today. 

“San Francisco has one of the most vibrant local kink communities anywhere,” said Alex. “Alternative lifestyles are not only accepted here, they are celebrated. The whole community- practitioners, participants, educators, craftspeople, voyeurs, fans- all of them can collaborate on what we do here. What you see on the webcams isn't professional models, but real people having real experiences.” 

“Louis, I want you to get me off,” Harry whispered. 

Oh fucking hell. 

Louis had been doing so well. Really, he had. He hadn't had any ulterior motives today, none. He'd been hanging out with Harry in a porn studio essentially platonically for more than an hour. But Harry's breath was panting against the back of his neck and Harry's voice was sending shivers down his spine. He had a massive erection and he had not dressed for concealment.

“As soon as we get downstairs,” Harry murmured. “Bathroom. Come with me?” 

“Are you sure?” Louis asked, just as quiet. 

Louis felt Harry tuck one finger into waistband of his jeans at the small of his back and tug. Any slack that Louis had had in the front disappeared. His gasp was completely obvious and would probably have turned heads- if Alex had not at that exact moment directed the group's attention towards the statue of the bound woman at the other end of the room. 

“I'm sure,” said Harry and he leaned forward just a little. Louis let his eyes fall closed. He could feel Harry's chest just barely brushing against his shoulder blades and Harry's chin stirring the back of his hair. Louis just stood still and breathed. It was a good thing he couldn't see Harry, that was for sure. He was already more turned on that he had been in- forever. Since the last time he'd been in Harry's bed. He felt Harry place one tentative hand on his side- figures curled lightly over his hip. God, Harry's hands. Louis wanted them everywhere, huge palms on every inch of his skin. He wanted to reach back to Harry but that would have been fatal. Instead Louis clenched both of his hands at his sides, digging his nails into his own palms. He was aching to turn around and face Harry, press up against him, slide his fingers into Harry's curls and pull him down to kiss and bite his mouth... Behind him, Louis could hear (and also slightly feel) Harry shifting his weight from foot to foot. Fuckkkkk. If Alex kept talking for very much longer they were going to end up sprawled across one of those red couches, tour group and webcameras be damned. 

Suddenly Louis heard three or four people clapping and his eyes snapped open. He had completely stopped paying attention to their tour guide, but obviously she had just wrapped things up. People were starting to turn back towards the door, and hence towards Harry and Louis. 

“Come on,” said Harry and his warmth disappeared from Louis's back. Louis turned quickly and followed him out of the room. They stumbled down four flights of stairs together, hardly daring to catch each other's eyes. But Harry took Louis's hand when they reached the bottom and Louis pretty much just melted. Harry pulled him along across the lobby and towards the bathrooms, and Louis realized in that moment that he would have followed Harry anywhere.

The bathroom was mercifully empty. They didn't even make it into one of the stalls. Louis pushed Harry back against the wall at pretty much the exact same moment as Harry gripped him with one hand at the back of his neck and the other on his ass. Harry's kiss was desperate and sloppy and _exactly_ what Louis wanted. Louis ground his hips against Harry's and moaned and gasped into his mouth. They lasted all of about nine seconds. Louis had one hand squashed against Harry's chest and the other up the back of Harry's shirt- Harry was pulling Louis in to better grind their erections together through their jeans. Harry was whimpering and when he dug his fingers into Louis and bucked against him Louis came in his pants like a goddamn fourteen year old. All of the strength seeped out of his body and he sagged against Harry. Harry tipped his head back, knocked it accidentally against the cool bathroom tile, and started laughing. 

_“Fucking_ hell,” laughed Harry. “That was pathetic. We are pathetic. I didn't even get your pants open. Christ.” 

Louis didn't respond. He ducked his head so he could press one cheek against Harry's shirt, and rub his face a little against the crook of Harry's neck and his collarbone. He had the feeling of not being ready to wake up, though of course he hadn't actually been sleeping. He just needed to be still for a moment and feel that Harry was solid and alive and real. That they both were. 

“You alright?” Harry asked when Louis continued to stay curled against him. 

“Yeah,” said Louis, but his voice didn't come out right. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah I'm good.” For the first time since Harry had started whispering his name, some rational thought was returning to him. A host of possibly ramifications- both wonderful and terrifying- were starting to occur to Louis. He didn't notice that he was trembling until Harry's arms came up around him to held him still. 

“What is it?” asked Harry, gently. 

“Why?” Louis whispered, the question coming out of him at last. _“Why_ are you giving me a second chance? Why do you even want to...” 

“I missed you,” said Harry. He hugged Louis closer, and rested a cheek against the top of Louis's head. 

“When you disappeared,” Harry started. “I mean- I was scared and hurt and furious too. But the longer you were gone... the more I just missed you. All the time.” 

“I missed you too,” said Louis. “I'm _so sorry.”_ His voice was uneven, but NOT because he was crying. 

“Can you promise you'll never do that again? Not vanish?” Harry asked. 

“Never again,” promised Louis. “God, never again.” 

“Then I can forgive you,” said Harry. 

Louis lifted his head finally. He needed to see this in Harry's face. He needed to see if this was true. 

“I forgive you,” said Harry, and leaned in to kiss Louis again. Softly, then less softly the second time. 

“Hey,” said Harry. A grin was spreading across his face. “Do you umm... want to come back to my place?” 

That startled a laugh out of Louis- half delight, half surprise. 

“Aren't we going slow this time?” Louis asked. 

“It will be slow,” said Harry. He put on a look of mournful tragedy. “It will take us like a whole hour to get there.” 

“A whole hour,” said Louis. He could see Harry's point there. That really was painfully slow. “Alright,” he said, smiling. He had no other plans today, and even if he had, he'd have thrown them out for Harry in a second. 

“Awesome,” said Harry, grinning. “Now I have to use the toilet and wipe jizz out of my pants, thank you for that, _by the way.”_

“Course,” said Louis. “Anytime.” 

Harry shoved him a little and they tried to clean up. When Louis glanced in the mirror though they definitely still looked like they'd just had a quickie in a public restroom. Which is sort of what had happened. Also, Louis's eyes were a little red though he had not been crying. He had not. 

Louis was very glad not to run into their tour guide in the hall. The security guard didn't even look at them. He'd probably seen everything by now. Louis felt like a year had passed since he'd first entered the Armory, but when they got outside the sky was still bright. It was only mid-afternoon. 

“Look,” said Harry quietly. 

Two people from their tour were still lingering at the bottom of the Kink.com steps. Black corset lady and grey sweater man. As Louis watched, Corset pulled a business card from her shiny leather clutch. She pressed it into Sweater's hand with a smile. 

“Call me,” said she. “We should watch it together.” 

“I will,” said Sweater. He looked like a man overwhelmed by sudden good fortune, and Louis knew how he felt. 

“Lovely to met you,” said Corset, and with a small wave she turned and walked off. Sweater watched her go, her card held tightly to his chest. 

Harry raised his eyebrows at Louis and they set off in the other direction towards the bus stop on the corner. This time it was Louis who took Harry's hand.

***

Harry almost always stood on buses, even when there were plenty of seats. He was standing now, right in front of where Louis was sitting, holding onto the rail with one hand and letting himself sway at the stops. He had his feet braced, and Louis had tucked his own feet between them. Of course, this put Harry's crotch pretty much exactly at Louis's eye level, but Louis was pointedly ignoring this and looking up into Harry's face instead.

“So,” said Harry. “What do you think about taking a class there?” 

“Uh, yeah. I think we should definitely do that,” said Louis. 

“Awesome,” said Harry, and he beamed.

***

Harry jumped up the steps ahead of Louis and jiggled the keys as he unlocked the front door. Louis lingered a moment on the doorstep, feeling almost like he should wait for permission to enter. Harry looked back and raised an eyebrow. 

“Come in,” Harry beckoned him. “I invited you over, Louis.” 

Louis smiled and ducked his head. The little thrill he got from stepping into the Pine Street apartment hadn't worn off yet. It felt so good to be able to come back here. Louis had realized that if there was anywhere he considered home in California it was not the dorms, where he had lived for one semester, and definitely not the house he lived in now. It was here. Harry had already kicked off his boots and headed down the hall to drop his keys and phone on the kitchen island. Louis toed off his sneakers more slowly, savoring both the newness and the familiarity of everything. The pile of shoes. The coat rack with Zayn's stolen umbrella. The little slice of Harry's room he could see through the open door. 

Harry sauntered back down the hall to where Louis stood with his hands in his back pockets, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. They stood looking at one another. Harry’s hand fiddled with one of his necklaces, sitting the cross charm in his between his lips. Louis’s eyes narrowed in on his lips again and he tried to shake it. Even after the bathroom it was rather presumptuous to think he was here for anything sexual. 

“Do you want me to... make us tea?” Louis offered, aware that it was Harry’s own tea he was offering. 

“You do make a mean cuppa,” Harry smiled, biting the tip of the charm before letting it fall back to his chest, shifting his weight a little. 

“Or-,” Louis shrugged. He didn’t really know. He was just going to keep following Harry's lead. 

“Or,” Harry nodded. His expression shifted as he decided something, and then he was crowding up Louis’s space, pressing him against the wall, hands on either side of his head. It was almost a threatening stance but Louis could feel that spark of radiating lust that had overtaken them back in the bathroom. Harry moved closer to him, sliding a thigh between Louis’s legs, and pinning his hips to the wall. 

Louis let out a moan, eyes drawn down to where their hips met. Harry rocked forward and gasped, throwing his head back as he let out a strangled, “ffffuck.” Louis grabbed Harry’s hips and flipped them so Harry hit the wall and then he kissed Harry hard, bruisingly so. Harry met him lip-for-lip enthusiastically, making those soft sounds in his throat again. 

“God your lips, Harry,” Louis moaned as Harry started nipping down his jaw, hands tangled in Louis’s hair, holding him close as Louis’s hands gripped for purchase on Harry’s hips.

“Did you miss them?” Harry asked as he started sucking a mark on Louis’s neck. There was something challenging in his tone and Louis wished they were both naked like five minutes ago. _But no. Go slow._ They didn’t need to get into everything all at once right away. 

“Fuck, yes,” said Louis shakily. Harry sucked harder, and swapped their positions again, holding Louis against the wall. Oral sex though? Definitely. That didn’t seem too far too fast. 

Louis’s hand moved to Harry’s hair, gripping and tugging at his curls and he felt Harry go pliant, giving him control. Louis nearly came in his pants again at that tiny bit of trust. He pulled Harry’s gaze up. 

“Beautiful lips,” he bit at them softly and Harry shuddered. Louis steeled himself and decided to go for it. “They’d look so lovely wrapped around my cock,” he added, low. It was a strong suggestion, the kind of thing he once would have said without thinking. He said it more carefully now, but saw Harry respond immediately to the hint of authority in his voice. Louis felt the heat of their old fire rekindling. It had a different feel now though. Louis wasn't demanding- he was requesting. And Harry wasn't just following, because he knew exactly what he was after. 

“Want to,” Harry nodded, face nuzzled into Louis’s neck, biting and sucking at his clavicle. The warm of permission flooded Louis. But when he spoke next he kept his voice calm and even.

“Knees,” said Louis and Harry dropped to them with what sounded like painful speed. Louis stroked through Harry’s curls as Harry’s hands made quick work of his zipper and button. 

Harry moved so willingly under his grasp- it was hard not to want to dive right into the deep end. Sure, it’d been a while, but Louis was fairly certain he could just pick it up again. Like riding a bicycle... but they were going slow. He moaned as Harry slid his pants down to his thighs, nipping gently at the tip of his cock through his briefs. Harry mouthed for a few seconds before tugging the elastic down past his erection. It popped out with near-comic enthusiasm and Louis would have laughed, if he'd been able. Harry gripped his base and slid his tongue down the length, causing Louis to grip Harry’s hair tighter before he realized what he was doing. He released Harry’s hair, hand drifting now at his side, in an effort to give Harry some autonomy. If Harry was angling to give Louis a blowjob then Louis was on-board and would let him do whatever he wanted.

But Harry reached for his hand and shoved it back into his curls, clenching his fingers around Louis and looking up determinedly into his eyes. He took Louis further into his mouth, as if in an effort to reach where his hand was holding. It took everything in Louis’s power again to not come right there. He tugged at Harry’s curls and Harry moaned, dropping his hand to grab Louis’s thigh as he started working his over his length. 

“F-fuck, Harry,” Louis threw his head back and held his hips still, gripping and regripping Harry’s hair. “So good.” He exhaled sharply on a particularly deep suck, staring down at Harry in awe. Harry’s eyes snapped up at the word “good”. 

“Is that what you want, Harry?” Louis guessed. Hoped. “Want to be my good boy?”

Harry hummed his agreement, closing his eyes and moving his hand and mouth quicker. Louis could see Harry palm himself, probably trying to ease the pressure in his impossibly tight pants. 

“Can't believe you asked me to get you off in the bathroom,” Louis told him, voice rough and jagged as orgasm quickly approached, minutely rocking his hips into Harry’s mouth. 

“Look so fucking good with your pupils blown out and face flushed,” Louis continued, and Harry dropped his hand from Louis’s length and looked up at him expectantly. “Want me to fuck your mouth, Harry?” Harry moaned and leaned in as he did. It wasn’t as rough as the old Louis would have gone and the whole thing felt over too quick. He could tell when Harry came in his pants, with Louis trying not to push too far back into his throat. The look on Harry’s wrecked face overwhelmed Louis. Harry, coming apart but still so eager to please...

“Harry- I’m-,” Louis warned, trying to pull him off, but Harry held fast, gripping his thighs as Louis’s orgasm took him and he shot down Harry's throat.

Harry swallowed, tears brimming in his eyes and Louis had a flashback to the last time he’d made Harry cry on purpose. _Shit._ Louis’s brain rushed to every worst case. They’d gone too far. He didn’t deserve Harry or his second chance. Four steps into the apartment and he’d fucked up everything. He felt suddenly very cold. Louis opened his mouth to apologize, his pounding heart nearly choking out his voice... but he was cut off by a laugh. 

“Chriiist,” Harry exhaled, sitting back onto the floor. He leaned back on his palms and crossed his legs as he looked up at Louis, wet spot clearly visible in his pants. 

“Fuck, I missed that,” Harry grinned and chuckled again. He wiped at some dribble on his chin as Louis slid down the wall, pants still around his ankles and openly gawking at Harry. 

“You just know all my buttons,” Harry continued, moving closer so his legs framed Louis’s. 

“Good and bad?” Louis clarified, with a weak half-smile. 

“Good and bad,” Harry nodded, and he leaned in just far enough for a kiss, waiting for Louis to bridge the gap between them. 

It was two soft kisses and one long one with a quick prod of the tongue. A thank you kiss, and a request for more. But not right now. It made Louis’s body warm again and he put his hands on Harry’s hips and pulled him in closer just to feel his body and weight. 

“So,” Harry said, looking into Louis’s eyes mischievously. “About that cuppa, hmm?” 

_“Ohhh,_ I see how it is now,” Louis laughed. He felt like himself again, and as light as air. “You barely let me get in the door, have your way with me, and then you demand tea. You really know how to treat a gentleman.” He stood up with great effort, fixed his pants and offered Harry a hand, pulling him up. 

A while later, after they had both changed into clean clothes pulled at random from the drier, they curled up in Harry's bed with their tea. Harry opened his laptop and pulled up the Kink.com website. They browsed through the list of classes, debating the merits of their various options. Louis was astonished to find that almost every single one of them sounded appealing. They ended up shelving the decision in favorite of watching some of Harry's favorite Kink.com videos. To check and see if they recognized any of the sets, of course. Louis, watching porn with his head resting on Harry's shoulder, his legs tangled with Harry's, was happier than he had been in a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, readers :) As always, one of the greatest pleasures of this series is including real places from San Francisco. [Wicked Grounds](http://www.wickedgrounds.com/) is a real coffee shop with a very friendly atmosphere that hosts many BDSM community related events. They also serve a really good cup of hot chocolate. [The Armory](http://www.armorystudios.com/) is also a real place and does indeed house the film studios of Kink.com (please only google search that if you are over 18 years old). There are a few images of the various sets mentioned in this story online- here are the [Hogtied set](http://www.armorystudios.com/stage-rentals/hogset/), [Speakeasy saloon](http://www.armorystudios.com/stage-rentals/speakeasya/), and [ Ultimate Surrender](http://www.armorystudios.com/sets-and-stages/ultimate_surrender/). Here is one view of the [Upper Floor.](http://www.armorystudios.com/stage-rentals/loungea/) If you are a local to the Bay Area you can take a tour similar to the one described in this story. Also if you are a Nor Cal local please give me a wave in the comments to say hello! 
> 
> This story has been a long time in the making. If not for my collaborator [mybeanieandme](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mybeanieandme/pseuds/mybeanieandme) there would not be a blow job at the end- I suggest you thank her by [following her on tumblr](http://mybeanieandme.tumblr.com/) :DD I also run a tumblr specific to this fic universe- you can find that [here](http://akikotree.tumblr.com/). Updates about the story get posted there as well as things like this [floorplan](http://akikotree.tumblr.com/post/105248037501/i-designed-a-floor-plan-for-harry-and-zayns) of the Pine Street apartment. Hope you enjoyed reading this update as much as we enjoying working on it :D


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